Joe Wang­Age: 42­Hometown: El Segundo, Calif.Connection to your Teammate: MarriedCurrent Occupation: Software Sales ExecutiveFavorite Hobbies: Coaching youth sports, poker and golfAchievements: My biggest achievement is my family.Lifelong to do List: Travel around the world.If I could switch places with someone: My son Jameson who has unlimited potential.Role Model/Hero: My parents. They immigrated here to USA to provide a better life for me. What are you passionate about? Raising my kids to be the best they can be.What would you do if you won the million dollars? Pay for my kids' college education.People would be surprised to learn: I was born in Taiwan and speak fluent Mandarin Chinese Favorite place you have ever visited: FijiBiggest challenge you and your teammate will face on the Race together: Getting a task that we both cant do and being away from our kids for an extended period of time. What do you hope to accomplish by running the Race (other then winning one million bucks)? Create a closer bond with HeidiPet peeve about your teammate: She cant multi-task.

Heidi WangAge: 37Hometown: El Segundo, Calif.Connection to your Teammate: WifeCurrent Occupation: HomemakerFavorite Hobbies: Traveling, gourmet cooking, shopping, golfing and readingAchievements: Giving birth to my two beautiful and intelligent kids, having a successful finance career prior to choosing to stay home to raise my children.Lifelong to do List: Run a marathon, improve my golf game and to never stop learning new things If I could switch places with someone: It would have to be with my daughter, Herason. The opportunities and potential for a young girl today are endless. Role Model/Hero: My parents, Richard and Yohko Leeser. They sacrificed everything for their children to give them a better life. I have the utmost respect and admiration for both of them. What are you passionate about? My family. There are no words for the love and devotion I have for my husband and children.What would you do if you won the million dollars? Invest it towards my children's college education fundPeople would be surprised to learn: In high school, I was voted Senior Class President, Most Likely to Succeed, Most Likely to win a Nobel Peace Prize and Most Likely to Total Their Car Favorite place you have ever visited: My home. Although Ive traveled extensively and visited many wonderful places, there really is "no place like home." Biggest challenge you and your teammate will face on the Race together: Being away from our children for so long and not being able to eat sushi.What do you hope to accomplish by running the Race (other then winning one million bucks)? Spending quality one-on-one time with my husband. We both could use some extra, uninterrupted time and attention from the other. Additionally, I plan to re-enter the professional workplace soon and I hope this experience makes me a better job candidate.Pet peeve about your teammate: Joe is a very intense and short tempered individual who thinks hes right all the time! ­­

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

These two remind me of Garrett & Jessica. He is usually very calm and collected, but when it comes to competition, he will do whatever it takes. And she is fun and friendly. I'm excited to watch their dynamic!

These two remind me of Garrett & Jessica. He is usually very calm and collected, but when it comes to competition, he will do whatever it takes. And she is fun and friendly. I'm excited to watch their dynamic!

They remind me of Anthony and Stephany... They can be absent throughout the race, finishing in a bad place with no kind of fun moments shown... I don't expect muxh of these two.

Edited to add: It works!! But please remember everyone, that the FB rule still applies here: No pictures or personal info are ever brought here from any of the racers' pages unless they give written permission. If you are ever in doubt, please check with puddin or me before posting.

« Last Edit: January 25, 2010, 01:56:47 PM by georgiapeach »

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Enjoy! Just remember that the rule about taking no pics from FB still applies here.

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

These two remind me of Garrett & Jessica. He is usually very calm and collected, but when it comes to competition, he will do whatever it takes. And she is fun and friendly. I'm excited to watch their dynamic!

They remind me of Anthony and Stephany... They can be absent throughout the race, finishing in a bad place with no kind of fun moments shown... I don't expect muxh of these two.

That's kind of where I am with these teams. I wonder what type of personalities they will bring to the show!

These two remind me of Garrett & Jessica. He is usually very calm and collected, but when it comes to competition, he will do whatever it takes. And she is fun and friendly. I'm excited to watch their dynamic!

They remind me of Anthony and Stephany... They can be absent throughout the race, finishing in a bad place with no kind of fun moments shown... I don't expect muxh of these two.

That's kind of where I am with these teams. I wonder what type of personalities they will bring to the show!

Yes, exactly. I really hope they don't suffer the same fate (poor editing and lousy luck) as Garrett & Jessica and Anthony & Stephanie. Hard to tell where they will finish in terms of skill, but in terms of hype it seems like they are headed down the road of anonymity.

On the other hand, if they can avoid the pitfalls that seem to plague teams of their type early in the race, they could become a really strong team. Time will tell.

These two remind me of Garrett & Jessica. He is usually very calm and collected, but when it comes to competition, he will do whatever it takes. And she is fun and friendly. I'm excited to watch their dynamic!

They remind me of Anthony and Stephany... They can be absent throughout the race, finishing in a bad place with no kind of fun moments shown... I don't expect muxh of these two.

That's kind of where I am with these teams. I wonder what type of personalities they will bring to the show!

Yes, exactly. I really hope they don't suffer the same fate (poor editing and lousy luck) as Garrett & Jessica and Anthony & Stephanie. Hard to tell where they will finish in terms of skill, but in terms of hype it seems like they are headed down the road of anonymity.

On the other hand, if they can avoid the pitfalls that seem to plague teams of their type early in the race, they could become a really strong team. Time will tell.

El Segundo residents Joe and Heidi Wang vanished for a while recently and couldn't tell anyone why. They still can't say much, at least until their disappearance plays out on television beginning next week. The married couple is among 11 teams competing for the $1 million prize on the 16th installment of "The Amazing Race," a reality travel competition that takes its contestants all over the world. The competition is over, but the couple must stay mum about where they went and how they did. The award-winning show airs on CBS beginning next Sunday. "The experience was extraordinary and it was very thrilling," said Joe Wang, a 42-year-old software sales executive for Microsoft. "You never expect what was going to happen next." The couple, who have a son and daughter, had watched the show and considered what it would be like to compete. "I never imagined being on the show," Joe Wang said. "They contacted us." A casting director thought they might make great contestants after seeing a family holiday photograph they had sent out to friends. It showed the couple and their two children standing on the Great Wall of China. Each was wearing tight performance shirts. "It was completely flattering," said Heidi Wang, a 37-year-old stay-at-home mother who formerly worked for Mattel's Barbie division. "It's like the shock factor, the wow factor. `Is this something we can do?' We were completely surprised." At first they turned down the offer because they figured they could not put their lives on hold. They had too many responsibilities, including their children. They changed their minds when producers gave them a video of a full season of shows to watch. The Wangs decided they would not miss out on the opportunity. "We got very hooked," Joe Wang said. "We applied like `We are going to win the game."' The competition, which has won seven Emmys, takes its contestants to countries across the globe. At each stop, they follow clues to picturesque locales and buildings where they must complete tasks that sometimes involve jumping off tall buildings. "It's not for the faint-hearted," Joe Wang said. "You face very difficult situations and you have to make decisions very quickly." This year's competitors include a gay couple, dating couples, detectives and brothers. One half of the model team is Caite Upton, who made headlines at the 2007 Miss Teen USA pageant when she was asked why a fifth of Americans can't locate the United States on a world map and gave an answer that included "some people out there in our nation don't have maps." The last-place finisher in each hourlong episode goes home. Three teams wind up battling in the final episode for the $1 million prize. The Wangs, who have been together for 13 years - married 11 - have lived in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and El Segundo. Joe, who was born in Taiwan and speaks Mandarin, immigrated with his family to New York, and was raised there. He attended State University of New York and moved to California for work after college. Heidi, originally from Medford, Ore., attended Pepperdine University in Malibu and formerly worked in accounting and finance at Mattel in El Segundo. "One of the reasons we picked the South Bay to live is the beach," Joe Wang said. "We love the beach and just fell in love with Hermosa, Manhattan Beach and El Segundo." Heidi Wang is involved in PTA and Joe Wang runs South Bay Youth Sports. Together, they raise Jameson, 8, and Herason, 6. Their relationship will soon be on a national broadcast for millions to see. Besides the actual race and tasks, the show focuses on the teammates' interactions. And many often fight and bicker as they race. "I know for our team, the problem child is going to be me," Joe Wang said in a video posted on the CBS Web site. "I am going to be just going off. I speak very loudly to begin with." On the Web site, he describes himself as the team's leader. In their private life, he sets the agenda with his wife's input, he said. "Absolutely I am going to be the leader and follow my instincts," he said in an interview. "I think the other teams are going to view us as someone to reckon with." larry.altman@dailybreeze.com

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Joe and Heidi Wang will compete in ‘The Amazing Race’ against 10 other pairs.

Joe and Heidi Wang of El Segundo attended the Olympics last year in China, and they sent out a holiday photo of themselves on the Great Wall. By some twist of fate, someone at “The Amazing Race” on CBS saw the photo and contacted them to be potential contestants on the hit reality show.

To say the least, they were surprised at the offer.

“We started talking about the show and originally we said, ‘You know, I think the commitment is going to be really tough,’” Joe said. “I work and Heidi is taking care of the kids. We said it’s probably going to be really difficult. They came back and said, ‘I think you’re a great fit. Here’s a season to watch and let me know what you think.’ We got completely hooked from that. We applied just like everybody did after that.”

Heidi added, “A lot of people who do the race, they’re either right out of school or maybe they don’t have a job at the moment. We have so many other responsibilities with raising our family, our kids. We turned them down originally but they kind of kept pushing. We were finally convinced.”

Because of the secrecy behind the upcoming season of “The Amazing Race,” which debuts Sunday, Feb. 14, they were unable to speak specifically about details of the show where couples compete for $1 million prize. But they could talk, in general, about the intense application process to get on the show.

“Just to make it to the final selection phase, there was a five-day interview process, which included everything from IQ tests to psych evaluations to major physicals that were conducted,” Heidi said. “There were interviews with ‘The Amazing Race’ people, the production staff and it went into studio executives. Every day there were eliminations and just to make it each day to the very end was just a fantastic experience.”

“We had our game face on,” Joe said. “We did not want to get eliminated at the end of the day … let’s say in the semifinal rounds there were 100 teams. Each day we see people leaving and we’re like since we made the investment and made the commitment, we’re going to continue to go. We had our ‘A’ game on the whole time.”

Before taping even started, the Wangs had to step up their physical training, especially for Heidi who had “not worked out much for five years.” She got up at 5:30 a.m. three days a week to do some running before her two children, Jameson and Herason, started their day.

“Starting with two months prior to the race, I was getting up early and running three times a week. The last month of training I was running with my backpack on The Strand three times a week,” she said.

Joe added, “If you want to lose weight, this is the perfect training mechanism. I lost 20 pounds from the training. I’ve kept it off. All my close friends and family have been impressed I was able to drop that much weight.”

Born in Taiwan, Joe’s family immigrated to America in 1972. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he was raised in New York but relocated to California following a good job offer in transportation and logistics. He currently works at Microsoft.

Originally from Medford, Ore., Heidi moved to California to attend Pepperdine. She had a successful finance career - her last job was in Mattel’s Barbie division managing the business development group - before having their first child. After putting her career on hold, she plans to jump back into the job market this year.After being together for so many years, Joe said one of his concerns was how participating on “The Amazing Race,” even though it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, might affect their relationship.

“I think people forget it’s a relationship show,” he said. “It’s how close you can be with your partner or your teammate. Heidi and I, we’ve been together for 13 years. We think because of the show our relationship was enhanced and improved dramatically. We kind of figured out how to work well together and because the show puts you in certain situations that we were able to deal with it. So we felt pretty good that our relationship is very strong and continues to be strong. We were fearful of getting on the show … that our relationship would go to the other end. What happens if we embarrass each other or have difficult situations with each other on the show and we ended up not forgiving each other? We thought we handled that very well.”

Heidi said competing on “The Amazing Race” was a great experience.

“Although we think we came in there the most competitive, the best team, after meeting all the other teams, they are all just great and just magnificent people themselves. Not only did we have a great time participating in the race, it enhanced our lives by meeting such wonderful people as well. That goes for the contestants and everyone that works at ‘The Amazing Race.’ It’s a fantastic show.”

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

This team is getting such a lousy edit. Is it really such a "bad" or "abnormal" thing to save a spot in line for an alliance member? Just because the "oh-so-important" detectives and the brothers say they are villains doesn't make it so. Things like this have happened before, but I've never seen such an average, normal, and non-villainous team get a more villainous edit. They seem to be nice, competitive people. They haven't done anything yet to warrant a "villain" label. It's all editing.

In addition, at least two of the F3 teams last season did worse things (possibly all three), but they weren't portrayed this badly.

AmazingDT

They sorta remind of Michael and Kathy from TAR3. They start of strong, but one single mistake gets them eliminated. I really like this team. Competitive, strong, calm, and don't care all that much about what other teams think of them

Never heard of that rule.... I think it is fine, they often buy tickets for each other.

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

I think that it is a smart move if you do it without the other teams seeing you work together. If they had teamed up with a team not as vocal as Carol and Brandy I think they would have gotton away with it. All the team were there to witness them saving spots at the bus terminal. So it didn't work.

AmazingDT

Microsoft employees will be rooting for one of their own in the new season of "The Amazing Race," which debuts Sunday night on CBS. The competitors include Microsoft enterprise sales specialist Joe Wang, 42, based in Southern California, who teams with his wife, Heidi, in the show's 16th season.

They may not get as much attention at the outset as fellow competitor Caite Upton, the former Miss South Carolina Teen USA, who will be making a highly ironic appearance in the race-around-the-world in an attempt to disprove the reputation she earned with a famously incoherent answer to a geography question. However, one entertainment blog has already predicted that Joe Wang could turn out to be this season's villain.

We asked Wang about that prediction and other topics -- including his thoughts on how Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer would do if they were on the show -- in a phone interview last week. (Although the season has already been taped, he was careful not to spoil anything.) Continue reading for highlights from our conversation.

How did you decide to try out for the show with your wife, and how did you get on? My wife and I saw a full season, season 14, the winners were Victor and Tammy. I'm a Chinese immigrant here in the United States, and we just got really proud to see that. We got really excited and said, let's go apply to be on the show and see what happens. The process is a very long one. It's not for the fainthearted, but we made it through all these rounds and finally got selected.

In what ways has your time at Microsoft prepared you for the Amazing Race? Absolutely, being a salesperson definitely prepares you to be on top of your game. We compete every day with competitors like Oracle, like SAP, like Apple. All those big vendors, IBM. Being on the race, basically, you're in that mode.

This is a very practical question, but how do you get the time off to do something like the Amazing Race? I just requested vacation time. Me being there for eight years, I had accrued a lot of vacation. ... I took four weeks.

I was reading some of the blogs that follow the Amazing Race, and one of them, out of Birmingham, has pegged you as the villian. Really? You know, there was a video out on CBS.com when we first announced, and I got a lot of comments about being "that guy" on the show. At the end of the day, however they portray me, it's for entertainment purposes. People that know me know I am a very intense person. There's no question I am very intense, and you'll see that from the show. If that makes me a villian, I'll take it as a positive more than a negative.

How are you going to be watching the show this season? Are you going to tune in every week, or are you going to specifically avoid it? No, no, you can't avoid it. This is probably our favorite season. We love the cast. No, we'll definitely have a premier viewing event with our friends. We actually have a lot of friends who will be with us in Santa Monica, cheering us on. There will be Microsoft people there, and then every weekend, we have been invited to other peoples' houses to view with them.

Knowing what you do about Microsoft, and the Amazing Race, how do you think Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer would do on the show? You know, Steve Ballmer would do great. He's high energy, a motivational kind of guy, and the race is all about that. I think Bill being reserved, I mean, I'm sure he would do well, but he wouldn't be as dynamic as Steve would.

But in that way, wouldn't they balance themselves out well? Oh you mean Bill and Steve together. Yeah, then absolutely.

Right, Bill would have the cool head to find the best tickets, and Steve would be urging them on, I bet. You know, I heard that this is one of Steve's favorite shows. At Microsoft, people have mentioned that to me, once they found out I was on the show.

Was that on your mind, as you were going through the Amazing Race, as in 'My real boss is watching, my ultimate boss'? Were you thinking about that? No, I never had that in my mind, because this was about Joe and Heidi. ... One thing I do want to say is that I think this represents well for Microsoft, to have an individual like myself in the public eye. ... The experience is about reaching the highest level, pushing the envelope, and I really feel like the show has opened that up. There's a lot of things out there in life that you can look at. Just have an open mind.

I know I have seen teams buying (or holding) even plane tickets for another team....

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"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan